


Honey, I Swapped Bodies With The Dog

by frozenbullies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bathroom awkwardness, Biting, Body Swap, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Mild Language, maybe explict language, mild body horror, post space-whale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 08:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18807742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenbullies/pseuds/frozenbullies
Summary: Keith thinks there are worse things than having to be on a strange planet solo at 3 AM.Those things include swapping bodies with your space wolf, dealing with your crew not knowing what is going on, having to function in your new body, watching everyone deal with said space wolf piloting your body poorly and without dignity, all while trying to figure out how to fix everything.But, hey, couldn't get any worse than all that, right?Right?





	Honey, I Swapped Bodies With The Dog

Curtains of thick mist hung over the tropical forest of an alien landscape while thick, bloated clouds hung in a mulberry red sky, heated to dripping by dual suns. It was lush, beautiful, and absolute torture. Keith was pissed he’d been the one to draw the short straw and retrieve the part of the Castle’s thruster that had been bashed off by a 3am run in with unidentified space debris and had fallen to the surface below while the rest of the team scrambled to get the bits that had flown into space. 

 

“Hey, Pidge.” Keith said into his com, kneeling over a red berry-like bush twirling a stem between two fingers. “Can you run a check and see if one of these will kill my wolf. He’s being a pain about trying to eat them.” His other hand was firmly clamped around Kosmo’s muzzle, the space wolf leaning over him with all his weight to get to the plant.

He heard a exasperated puff and the distinct sound of Pidge taking a long swig of what Hunk had promised was good enough to be pretty much the best approximate for coffee they could make in the Castle. “Yeah, gimme a second.” She yawned, forcing Keith to try to stifle one of his own as he turned more fully towards Kosmo to more or less start wrestling him away from the plant. “You really shouldn’t be going around even touching the weird plants before asking me.” Pidge cut in. “This place is full of some messed up flora if what Corran says is still, like, biologically relevant after 10,000 years.”

“Well-” Keith muttered, trying to pry Kosmo’s paw out from his neck, “-I touched it, so just tell me if I’m gunna die or not and if this idiot will join me if I let him go.”

She snickered dryly, “I’m surprised he hasn’t teleported away from you yet.”

As if he could hear her, hell, maybe he could, Kosmo blinked out of Keith’s fumbling grasp and into the bush, muzzle red with berry juice before Keith could even register what had happened. 

“Oh god.” He panicked, rushing toward Kosmo, “Pidge! I’m gunna need that answer a little faster here!”

“I’m trying!” She hissed, the sound almost static-like through the com. 

Keith muttered just about every curse word he could think of under his breath, lurching forward in an awkward fumble of limbs and hands. “I swear to god if you fucking die I’m-” His voice wavered between anger and something weaker. He grabbed at Kosmo’s scruff as the wolf dove headfirst into the bush for another mouthful, shoving the illicit treats into, and down, his throat as fast as he could before rough fingers tangled into the fur at the back of his neck. “Got you, you little-”

\---

“Keith! Do you copy? Keith! KEITH!”

Pidge’s voice screeched through, the static of the com almost oppressively loud. Oh god this was a new flavor of headache. Keith groaned, the sound coming out tinged with the ends of a whine he didn’t want to be there. He opened his eyes, looking out at his helmet laying an arm’s length away, just outside the bushes that laid flat under him. He hadn’t remembered taking it off. 

Then again he hadn’t remembered passing out either. 

His vision was blurry, unfocused like when he used to wear his dad’s reading glasses he had sworn up and down he didn’t really have or need. And… dull. Hadn’t the sky been red? He KNEW his helmet definitely had been red. Not a muddy grey-green-yellow. God if touching this plant made him colorblind he was going to be really, really pissed about that.

He swallowed dryly, tongue feeling almost too big for his mouth as he worked around the flat, stale taste of something sugary. “I copy, Pidge.” He groaned. 

Or, at least, he tried to. 

Instead what came out of his mouth was a series of low, grumbling, throaty sounds and hearing it was enough to cause him to sit bolt upright. He fumbled back, teetering precariously as he tried to push from sphinx pose to seated and none of his coordination would allow him to complete the transition. It was like his limbs were too short and his joints were in all the wrong places and- 

Oh god. 

He looked down his hands and every single hair on his body stood on end at the sight of paws underneath him. 

OH GOD. 

It was a frantic, stumbling turn-around, chasing his own tail in a tangle of uncoordinated limbs until he had seen enough of the black, blue patterned shagginess to fully cement what had happened. 

He was his wolf. Or, rather, he was in his wolf’s body. 

Wait. 

He looked around with panic lacing his quickening breathing. Where was the wolf? Where was HIS BODY?! 

“Shiro, have you and Hunk zeroed in on Keith’s locations yet?” Again, Pidge’s voice as it came from his helmet was grating. Nails on a staticy chalkboard. 

“I’m almost on location, Pidge. I should be right on top of him.” Shiro replied, voice even in ways it should be and worried in ways it shouldn’t. Keith’s ears perked up at the sound of it, army crawling closer to his helmet with a whine. 

“Do you guys hear that?” Hunk said, the keening static hanging between words. “It sounds like an animal.”

Pidge groaned in a way that Keith knew meant she was scrubbing her face in a tired attempt to focus, “Something might have attacked him, that would explain why his helmet and his suit would be giving off two different locations.”

Shiro’s voice pinched. “Then we should hurry. I’m going in for a landing.”

“Copy that, I’m right behind you.” Hunk replied. 

Overhead there was a great roaring, but not of engines. Yellow pierced the canopy tactlessly, trees shuddering and releasing their branches like skinks shedding their tails. It all came crashing down at once, lion and debris echoing in one, huge cacophonous sound that plastered Keith’s ears to the base of his aching skull. 

Yellow leaned down, his jaw gracing the ground with a delicacy that seemed strange compared to his battering ram of a landing. His mouth opened and Hunk stepped out with bayard active and over his shoulder. He looked around for a moment before relaxing noticeably, though still not fully, when he spotted Keith. 

Smiling, he deactivated his bayard and started walking over. “All clear over here, guys. I found Keith’s helmet and Kosmo is here too. Must have been him I was hearing.” 

“Copy.” Pidge grated. “Shiro, updates?”

“Landing now.” 

Hunk smiled, kneeling down in front of Keith and offering his hand. “Hey, buddy.”

Keith stood up, the action feeling foreign, and stumbled closer to his helmet, pawing at it and rolling it closer to himself in an effort to try and force Hunk to connect the dots. “It’s me!” He garbled, frustrated at his own voice.

“Were you keeping Keith’s helmet safe? Such good wolf.” Hunk cooed as he took the helmet from under his paws, dusting it off before reaching out to Keith. 

He ducked away from the hand and exhaled heavily. It wasn’t like Hunk could understand him. He had no way of telling him what was going on. But that didn’t mean he was going to play the part. 

Hunk frowned, dejected, and pulled his hand back. “Well, alright then.” He paused, almost thinking to himself. “Why… why didn’t you stay with Keith. Or teleport to him? Can you teleport me to him now?”

Keith huffed another deep breath and Hunk deflated further. 

“Pidge, Hunk. We, uh… we have a problem here.” 

Keith’s ears shot forward at the sound of Shiro’s voice echoing from both his and Hunk’s helmets. 

“Did you find Keith?” Hunk said. 

Shiro chuckled, “Oh, I found him alright. But he is… uh, well. I had better let you guys take a look for yourselves. He’s not injured though.”

Hunk sighed, “Alright, that’s two good things at least. I’ll head up with Kosmo and meet you in the control room.”

“Copy that.” Pidge grumbled, the noise echoing through the com clearly at first, then again muffled like it was behind the curve of a coffee mug. “I told him not to touch anything.”

Apparently Shiro decided to ignore that comment, or maybe he didn’t hear. Keith hoped the latter. It wasn’t like Keith was expecting him to white knight for him against the grumpy comments of a sleep deprived Pidge. But, I mean, he would normally have at least sighed or acknowledged or something. 

Then again. If he was, as Keith suspected, dealing with his space wolf in his body then he may very well have enough on his plate. 

Wait.

Keith stood bolt upright, his hackles stiff and ears alert as the thought processed. Shiro. Dealing with the wolf. While thinking it was him. 

“Hey!” Hunk shouted, stunned as Keith started bolting towards Yellow and into the still-open mouth of the behemoth. “Wait up!”

\--

Keith was out of Yellow’s maw as soon as it was open. He rushed towards the bridge after only pausing to confirm that all five lions were in the hangar, a fact that dug a groan from the back of his throat. 

“Seriously?” Hunk shouted, following close behind. 

The scene that greeted them on the bridge was somehow both better and worse than he’d expected. His body, or rather his wolf, was seated on the floor of the bridge. His legs were stretched in front of him, like he didn’t quite know what to do with them, and his hands were pressed palms down between the outstretched legs with his weight centered there. His expression was wide-eyed and alert, but doe-like in it’s not-quite-vacancy. 

It was weird as all hell. 

Shiro was sitting cross legged across from him, clearly worried and reeking of stress. Pidge was kneeling beside him, running scans, while Allura, and Lance stood at a hovering distance to keep a careful eye of the situation. 

Hunk stepped in, drawing attention as he made himself known. “So, how’s he doing? Is it bad? You made it sound like it was bad.”

The saucer-eyed look on his wolf’s face brightened visibly as he spotted Keith. In a few short seconds he scrambled to contort himself sidewise, drawing his legs back and under him in a less than graceful motion. He stood, ass in the air as his legs failed to follow the level-spined body plain that was in his mind, and skittered into a clumsy, loping run out of the fray of his worried companions who scrambled in turn to contain him. 

Keith stiffened, horrified at the dissonance of the sight. It would have been bad if it had been any human body shifting and stumbling like this. The fact that it was his own made an irrevocably unnerving moment quickly bleed into one of horror. 

“Stop!” He shouted, the noise a sharp, cut-off sound anyone else would have qualified and a bark. 

His wolf stopped, balking slightly. His knees lowered to the ground slowly as his head tilted and those wide eyes fixed him with a damning but familiar stare. 

Hunk broke the silence. “Oh that’s creepy.”

 

“It would seem that Kosmo is alarmed by Keith’s… state.” Allura said tactfully. 

“Or he doesn’t recognise him.” Pidge supplied, adjusting her glasses.

His wolf’s nostrils flared rapidly, breathing shallow and shuddering his ribcage with each desperate pull of air. It never seemed like enough and Keith felt his own ribs rattle with a low growl as the caricature puppet of his body crept carefully closer to press his nose into the fur of his shoulder. 

“Hunk! Pull Kosmo back before he bites him!” Lance screeched, almost hidden behind Allura. 

Hands hooked around his shoulders and Keith snapped, turning suddenly to face Hunk with a sour, twisted face and body-slamming his wolf in the process. “Don’t Touch Me.” He growled, and Hunk backed away with hands raised as his wolf stumbled to get distance.

“No way, man. You do it. I’m not getting bit today.”

Lance hid further behind Allura. “Do I look like I’m any more up for getting bit than you are?” 

“That’s enough.” Shiro said firmly, his brows knitted together but not quite hiding either his worry or his exhaustion. “No one is getting bit.” He stood up and crossed his arms, walking over to Keith and kneeling down in front of him. He offered his knuckles and Keith perked his ears. “It’s ok, Kosmo.” His voice was honey-thick and soothing. “Keith just isn’t feeling well is all.”

‘You can say that again.’ He thought. 

Keith huffed and looked to where his wolf still stood with a kicked-dog expression that somehow translated even on his own face. He was still mad at him. Obviously. But that didn’t mean he was going to tolerate having been the one who made him make that face. He loosened his posture, feeling hairs he hadn’t even noticed had been on end flatten smooth once more.

His wolf perked up, tongue lolling out embarrassingly before he covered the distance between them in a shuffle of limbs to press his face into Keith’s shoulder, small tongue running quick laps through the fur. 

“Is he LICKING him!?” Lance shrieked. 

“It would seem so.” Coran said, walking onto the bridge with two cups of not-coffee. He handed one to Pidge and the other to Lance, who took it greedily. 

Keith shoved a paw into his wolf’s face and rolled his eyes, trying and failing to force himself to grow numb to the increasing mortification as he held him at arm’s length. 

The chuckle that it earned from Shiro was almost worth it. Keith glanced over to see him looking to his wolf with fond concern, batting Keith’s paw away from his face and brushing his bangs out of his eyes. “Any luck finding out what could have caused this?” He said, turning his attention to Coran as the wolf leaned his shoulder against his arm. 

Coran twiddled his mustache, seemingly deep in thought. “Well, that would be easier if we knew exactly what was wrong with him.” He pursed his lips. “Flayrica, that little tropical beauty of a planet down there, is full of all sorts of strange plants and minerals. Most of which don’t react well with organic life.” He paused. “You humans are organic, right?”

Pidge sipped angrily at her not-coffee. “If we weren’t then your healing pods wouldn’t have worked on us.”

“Fair enough!” He perched his chin on his fist. “You never know when you’ll find a good non-carbon-based species out here.”

Allura coughed lightly but dramatically, drawing his attention. “Could it, perhaps, be Threnchberry poisoning?”

“Poisoning?” Shiro wheezed, causing the wolf to sit upright beside him at the sound. 

“Goodness no!” Coran exclaimed, flopping his hand around a bit as he explained. “Threnchberries would explain the lack of coordination and the far-off expression but he’d also be bleeding from his ears and trying to throw himself off of every high place in the Castle.”

Keith winced at the thought, looking up over his shoulder as Hunk made a queasy sound. 

Pidge pulled up her logs. “Berries are probably a good angle to be looking at. He was examining one that Kosmo was trying to eat. Red, grew in bunches. He did touch them and,” She looked over to Keith. “Actually I think Kosmo ate some.”

Every set of eyes locked on to Keith at once and the hair at the back of his neck stood on end. 

“Then why wouldn’t Kosmo be showing similar symptoms?” Shiro said, looking back to the wolf in Keith’s body who was now laying on bent elbows and folded knees beside him. 

“Well,” Hunk started, struggling to maintain his focused breathing as he spoke. “He did seem pretty dizzy when I found him. Plus, I don’t think he can teleport right now.”

Pidge took a long sip of her not-coffee and set the mug on the floor, inciting a frustrated noise from Lance who left Allura’s orbit to pick it up as Pidge walked towards Keith.

“Don’t.” He warned, the word coming out in a huffy growl.

“Quit that.” She retorted, stubbornly coming into his space and bringing up a scan. 

Keith rolled his eyes, looking away from her pointedly and opting again to watch the nightmarish fold of limbs that was his wolf, curled up contently next to Shiro. 

As soon as their eyes met his wolf lifted his head, nose twitching as he unfolded himself and crawled hands-and-knees into Keith’s space. Everyone held their breath as he bumped his head underneath Keith’s chin and rubbed his neck into his fur in one, long stretch forward before slumping down at his feet. 

Heaving a heavy sigh, Keith simply lifted a paw and rested it on the wolf’s shoulders, pawing slowly it as close of a motion to a pet as he could manage. The wolf obviously knew what was up. He wanted to give him every ounce of normal comfort he could. 

Pidge smiled, the caffeine clearly hitting her system enough to pull her, somewhat, out of her sour mood. “I don’t think we have to worry about them recognising each other.” She looked to Shiro with a dry, humorless voice. “Though we already knew Keith recognised us.” 

Shiro’s face reddened and Keith fought the warring emotions of warmth at the sight of it and exasperation that a mostly-friendly wolf running his body with the wrong biological software could be mistaken for his brand of romantic partnership. The sum total of the two emotions equated to something like a headache and Keith groaned, shooting Pidge a glare.

She poked his nose. “Cool it, puppy.” She spat the word with force and affection. “I’m all done.” 

Keith’s ears flew back and he swatted her finger away gently. Much to her amusement. 

“Alright, these scans should give us a starting point.” Pidge collected her cup from Lance and turned to Coran and Allura. “We should get started. We’re already up anyway.”

“What about us?” Lance interjected, gesturing to himself, Hunk, and Shiro carefully so not to spill from his own mug. 

Allura looked to Keith and Kosmo carefully. “Well, I think that someone should keep an eye on Keith. Kosmo too. Just in case.”

“Of course!” Coran agreed, nodding confidently as he folded his arms behind himself. “To keep an eye out for more symptoms.”

“And keep them out of trouble.” Allura supplemented. 

Shiro stood up from where he had been cross-crossed on the floor. “I can handle that.”

“Ok and what about me and Hunk?” 

“You can go back to sleep for now.” Shiro suggested. “It’s been a… big night. You’ll need your rest.”

Lance opened his mouth to protest and Pidge turned around, her glasses flashing dangerously. “Unless you want to go out and search for a missing ship part on a planet that’s biological components scrambled Keith’s brain beyond recognition and has him crawling around the Castle like a nightmare beast.”

“Sleep. Got it. Night!” Lance sped off, Hunk in tow muttering something sleepily that was likely some version of ‘good night’. 

Keith exhaled loudly, looking down at the sleeping bodysnatcher at his feet and then up to Shiro. This may not be the most flattering angle, but the sheer height added from this vantage point was good enough for Keith. His tail thumped slow and steady against the Castle floor and Shiro looked down at him with a tired sigh. 

“Come on, Kosmo.” He said, bending down to scoop up Keith’s body, and the wolf sleeping within. “Let’s get to bed.” 

The walk to Shiro’s room was a struggle of too-big paws and too-short legs. Somehow running in this body was easier than walking and Keith was exhausted by the time they made it. 

But he realized reprieve wasn’t going to find him easily when Shiro guided him with a gentle hand off the bed and onto Kosmo’s largely ignored makeshift dog bed. He turned his back on the incredulous Keith to instead proceed to deposit the sleeping Kosmo into the soft haven of his bed and tuck him in gingerly before valiantly taking the futon for himself. 

Needless to say it was going to be a long night.

\--

Keith woke up to a massive headache, aches and pains from the hard floor, and the overpowering smell of something amazing. It was like the smell had taken him by the nose and pulled him face first, somehow both too much and not enough. His stomach rumbled and he stretched out heavy limbs in painful directions they did not want to go in before remembering his predicament. It was a groggy shuffle to the door, one leg almost fully asleep, before he realized that there was no way he was going to be able to open the door. He sat up, like a begging dog, and stared at his own paws with growing frustration. 

Great. And he had to piss too. 

Great. 

Shiro was asleep in a cocoon of a single, threadbare blanket and Keith cursed his big, dumb heart knowing that the one cozy in their bed was the fucking wolf. He was easy enough to wake, two big paws perched up on his shoulder and a cold, insistent nose in the crook of his neck were plenty to chase off sleep’s grip. 

“Kosmo nooooo-” He grumbled, fishing Keith’s snout out from his neck, pinching his shoulder up to block further access. 

Keith exhaled sharply, smacking Shiro’s shoulder a few times before crawling gracelessly onto the futon and sitting on his stomach, digging claws and bony paws into the unprotected flesh with his whole weight. He was dumped unceremoniously onto the floor as Shiro turned over, laying on his side now and watching him with tired eyes. 

“What’s up, buddy? You’re never like this.” He yawned. 

Keith stood up urgently, looking to the door and then back to Shiro a few times in rapid succession. 

“You wanna go out?” Shiro muttered, sitting up slowly. “Kosmo just teleport yourself ou- oh. Right. You can’t teleport right now.” He scrubbed his hand over his face before unwrapping himself from the blanket. “Sorry about that, pup.”

Keith just about tripped over himself as he raced to the door, watching in agony as Shiro shambled over before finally opening it. Keith wriggled through the door as soon as it was opened a crack, running down the hall without even checking if Shiro closed the door behind him. 

The communal bathrooms in the Paladin’s wing of the Castle was only a short run from Shiro’s room and, thankfully, like most rooms that weren’t sleeping quarters, were motion sensor activated unless switched off. No hands needed. The rest of the process was another matter entirely. It was a split second of panic, bargaining, and finally acceptance before Keith gave in and ran for the showers. 

 

It was quiet in the showers. Dark. For the first time since this whole ordeal started Keith felt like he could let his hackles, and his guard, down. Not having to perform some semblance of control over this stupid body that never moved the way he wanted, stole his voice, and had him frustrated every moment he was forced to exist in it. 

Which made it all the more terrible when the door to the showers opened, pouring in bright light, and the high pitched screaming of Lance as he and Keith made eye contact ripped that peace away. Keith shrieked, something he wasn’t even sure a wolf’s vocal cords could do, and the combined screaming of the two of them was terrible. 

It was a prolonged few seconds before Keith finally had the sense to move, trying to shove his way past Lance and out the door. He felt two hands grip into his scruff, though the screaming didn’t quite stop- only bled into a long stream of “NO NO NO NO NO” as Lance closed the door with his elbow. 

“NOT WITH THOSE PAWS, YOU DISGUSTING ANIMAL!” Lance shouted, shoving a struggling Keith back into the showers and turning on the water. 

Keith howled as the ice cold water hit his back. He lashed out, jaws snapping shut before he realized what he was even doing, and it was a split second before the screaming started again and he felt something warm dribble down his chin. 

There was a furious knocking at the door and Keith looked up just long enough for Lance to punch him in the face and slam the glass door of the shower shut. 

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE ANCIENTS IS GOING ON IN THERE!?” Allura’s voice rung out, highlighted by the hissing breaths of Lance. Keith watched through the garbled image of the frosted glass as he started packing towels over his arm. 

“KOSMO FUCKING BIT ME!”

The door whirred open and light filled the room again as Allura and Pidge rushed in, the former crowding close to Lance to check his wound and Pidge staring through the glass at Keith, huddled in the far corner of the shower to escape the icy spray of water. 

Allura peeled back the towels, breathing a sigh of relief as she saw what laid underneath. “It’s a shallow wound. You’re barely bleeding.” 

“It doesn’t FEEL like I’m barely bleeding!” Lance retorted. 

Keith grumbled, throwing his head back against the tile as the warbled noises echoes around the room through the hiss of shower water. 

“What happened?” Pidge asked, “Why is Kosmo in the bathroom?”

“He was peeing in the shower!” He shrieked. “I came in to do my morning P.T.A shower, just the basics, you know, just so I can make until a night shower while still feeling human, and he was standing in the shower TAKING A PISS!”

Keith was starting to not regret having bit him. 

“I screamed, he screamed, which was weird, then he tried to run out with PISS COVERED PAWS so I tried to wrangle him into the shower to rinse him off and he BIT ME!”

“My paws were not covered in piss!” Keith barked, incredulous enough to not care about being understood. 

“Just be glad it was the shower. My dog Bae Bae used to mark on the sofa until he was, like a year old.” Pidge looked at him through the glass. “But Kosmo doesn’t mark outside of his dog run with Kaltenecker. And he doesn’t bite. He’s a good boy.” 

“Do you think his maladaptive behavior could be further symptoms?” Allura supplied.

Pidge creaked open the shower enough to shove her hand through and turn off the water before closing it again. “Animals act weird when they are sick. I think it may be related to the existing disorientation and discoordination. Plus- he can’t teleport. He may have felt threatened. We have no idea what’s going on in his brain if he’s just as addled as Keith is.”

When the water subsided Keith stood dripping, soaked through as he stalked miserably to the edge of the door where Pidge had opened it and started pawing. It opened slowly, in bits, as he worked his claws into the handle and bent his elbow in ways it didn’t want to go but he couldn’t be bothered to care about the pain. 

He could feel each of their pairs of eyes on him as he opened the door, wide and shocked as he stepped out of the shower and stood dripping. He looked to Lance with a sour glare and he shrunk back as Allura put a reassuring hand on his knee. 

“He doesn’t exactly look addled to me.” Allura said, using Lance’s knee as a brace as she stood, taking a step toward Keith. 

Keith exhaled deeply, all his fight replaced with resignation after having been thoroughly humiliated at such an early hour of the morning.

“Did you see that? That was FREAKY! Kosmo shouldn’t be able to open doors!”

Pidge crossed her arms, looking like she was about to say something before there was a whoosh of something running past the open door. Then something else running past the door that was decidedly Shiro, punctuated by a crash in the galley and a shout. 

Four heads peeked out from the bathroom, looking to one another momentarily, before they all followed the rush of catastrophe at full speed. 

When they came in Keith, still dripping wet, had to use every ounce of his quickly waning patience not to explode right then and there. Because there, right there, leaning on the center of the galley table, was his wolf. In his body. Wearing only what appeared to be the pair of Shiro’s sweatpants that he had been wrangled into last night. Face shoved into the middle of a serving platter of Hunk’s carefully prepared breakfast. All while Hunk screamed obscenities Keith hadn’t even known Hunk knew and Shiro seemed to be grabbling both with the flailing, desperate wolf and his own sanity at the same time. 

Keith could relate. 

Shiro wrestled the wolf away from the table, arms wrapped around his chest and lifting until his feet dangled off the ground and he was left to only flail his arms uselessly. He wore the mile-long expression of someone who has dealt with entirely too much so far and either is starting to feel like they have some sort of handle on the situation or who has stopped caring if they have any handle on it at all. 

Kosmo wore a smattering of yellow goo and crumbs across his face, as well as an exaggerated pout. 

“OK. OK.” Hunk seemed to be hyperventilating. “It was just the breakfast casserole. We still have plenty of food. It’ll be ok.”

Kosmo whined pitifully, squirming in Shiro’s arms which only tightened his firm grip further as he gave an exasperated sigh and looked to the rest of the arriving group. 

Pidge, ever succinct, simply walked over to the not-coffee machine, made two cups straight up, put a straw in one and walked over to Shiro holding the straw-laden cup up for him to drink as she started gulping down the other. 

At first he questioned it, eyebrows flying up, but after a moment his shoulders slumped and he angled Kosmo’s flailing as far away from the cup as possibly before taking a long sip. “Thanks.” He muttered, sounding just about as exhausted as everyone else looked. 

“No problem”

He looked to Lance, arm still wrapped in a towel, to Allura, sporting dark circles that stood stark behind her marks, to Keith, soaking wet and wielding a murderous expression, and then to Pidge who was still sucking down her not-coffee. “Tough morning?” He ventured.

“Mhm.” Pidge nodded, gesturing to the table and inviting everyone to sit. 

“Kosmo bit me.” Lance deadpanned. 

Shiro was figuring out how to seat himself, the wolf in his grasp still trying his best to escape as he replied. “Really?” 

“Just a shallow bite.” Allura assured, pushing Shiro’s chair in to trap Kosmo between the table and Shiro. 

“Well that’s good.” He said casually, like Allura had said that the weather would be nice today.

Lance looked offended for a moment and Keith would have laughed any other time but he was too transfixed on the trainwreck of watching Kosmo squirm against Shiro’s two-armed deathgrip.

Hunk cleared a no-food radius away from Shiro, but more importantly the wolf, and started making everyone a plate. He still looked upset, but like he was starting to pull himself together.

Keith, still soggy, walked over to Shiro’s chair and sat between him and Allura, chin resting on the table. His nose twitched furiously as all the food was passed around. Smells. That was the one thing he knew that even if he was in this body a hundred years he would never get used to. Clarity of vision was easy enough to adapt without for now. Full spectrum color was already starting to become a distant memory. The joints were becoming more mentally mapped, almost like crawling. But SMELLS- those were things he didn’t have the frame of reference to verbalize coherently. If he tried to think of how to describe it the words flew from his mind and were replaced by feelings for which he had no definition. Intuitive connections like satiation and survival to butter, fat and salt. Like primal hunger and successful endeavors to meat. Like how he finally was piecing together which scents were the unique markers for each paladin, and how each changed with mood, sleep, meal, or stress. He was finding each breath told him more than his blurry vision could. 

Hunk, panic visibly subsided, still hovered with a dull cloud of anxiety and distress as every exhale puffed the scent further. He felt useless and his one attempt at being useful, providing a hint of normality to the drawn thin crew, had been thwarted. 

Allura, normally so put together, was leaking weariness from each pore with even the most subtle movement. She smiled, assured Lance that everything was fine, sure. But there was a wispy edge of concern to it all. 

Lance, for however much he pouted, did taste of metallic pain- but not as much as he did restlessness and malease. Just one whiff had Keith antsy. There was so much to fix, so much to do, and he, like Hunk, has had to sit back and do nothing. 

 

Pidge was only exhaustion, at least on first breath. It was thick like a fog, hiding even her own personal scent and that of caffeine, the smell of which was almost solid and crystalline when he found it. But, underneath was furious frustration. Genius that she was- by default this was on her to fix and so far she’d found nothing. 

Shiro, much like Pidge, was deeply tired. Sleep had only taken the edge off. The rest was a blanket of emotional fatigue that ran deeper than physical weariness. It was worry, annoyance, despair. It was the desperate pain to bring back what was lost just beyond his fingertips and the dull ache of pushing that away to deal with the here and now. 

But Kosmo. Oh, Kosmo. He reeked more than any of them. 

Hot, electric, neon confusion. Despairing and floundering fear. He was fraught with it all- everything in his being screaming at the top of it’s lungs to be heard. There was so much he had lost and so much he didn’t understand. For all his good nature and his lighthearted antics he was terrified and seeking comfort in anything he could. And Keith’s heart broke for not having noticed before. 

The table grew silent.

Pidge held Shiro’s fork for him, letting him continue preoccupying himself with balancing Kosmo on his knee and pinning and re-pinning his arms down between bites of pan-fried mystery meat, food goo and sips of not-coffee. She flipped through the figures on her datapad with the other hand, shifting between tasks effortlessly. Everyone ate in relative peace, not having the energy or the heart to break the tired lull that settled over them. 

It was a few patient minutes before Keith’s stomach growled, loud and hollow, and Hunk sighed before picking up the casserole dish and sliding it across the floor for him. There was a certain lack of dignity in every aspect of the situation but he was not in a position to argue. 

As he bent down to take a bite Kosmo’s whines turned to desperate keening and Keith looked up in time to see Shiro press a patient kiss to his temple. 

“He’s going to have to eat eventually.” Lance said, pulling over an empty plate and piling it high. “It being awkward for us to see him shoving his face into a plate is no reason to starve him.”

Shiro’s expression pinched. “I know. I know. I was just going to wait until he was back in the room.” He sighed. “I know that if he knew what he was doing he’d be mortified. Even more so if he knew we let him make a bad situation worse. And-” His voice stiffened, “It’s hard to… see him like this.”

The whine that choked past Keith’s throat was unintentional and, thankfully, went unnoticed. He abandoned the casserole dish to army crawl closer to Shiro’s seat. He looked up to see the awkward angle of Allura resting a hand on Shiro’s shoulder, Kosmo’s awkward swiveling around and shoving a curious nose to her fingers cracking the tenderness of the gesture. Keith leaned his shoulder against Shiro’s leg, drying fur leaving a bodyprint in the creases of his pj pants. He met his curious glance with a firm, steady gaze. He would fix this. He tried to promise him without words. No matter how long it took. He would fix this. 

Shiro shooed him away with a gentle shove of his knee. 

\----

The day bled into night again and Keith found that following the trainwreck that was Shiro coddling Kosmo made for a grating passage of time. At some point around noon he had slipped out of their room and followed his nose to the bridge where he found Coran and Pidge looking over some database of plants. He’d slipped under the desk without being chastised and it was there he spent most of the evening either napping or listening in on their attempts to piece together what had happened. 

“None of this makes any sense.” Pidge whined. Her lack of sleep was making her steadily more and more impatient and it had long since worsened when Hunk cut her off after her 6th mug of not-coffee. 

Coran, while rarely level-headed in the strictest of terms, had long since started taking the helm on this research project. He draped himself over the back of Pidge’s chair extravagantly and looked at the screen with a pouty expression. “MMmmmmmmmm… It could be Thraxian Flu. Though that has an incubation period of a little less than a week. And it’s been over 3 months since we were anywhere near a solar system where it’s endemic so nevermind. He isn’t trying to build a nest so we can rule out Hivewarbler parasitism.” The list grew longer and longer as he rambled, finally coming to a close with a punctuated sigh. “Maybe we should just call Krolia. Him being Galran could be why I can’t think of any reactions that could cause this.”

Keith startled fast enough he hit his head on the bottom of the desk. There was No Way he wanted his mother to be part of this nightmare. 

Pidge, who had long since rested her head on the bridge, grumbled and slipped a hand under the desk to run lazy fingers through Keith’s fur. “She’s not to be disturbed on this mission, remember?”

“Unless there is an emergency.”

“I think she meant more ‘we’re being murdered by the galra’ and less ‘my kid is an idiot and touched a stupid plant that fried his brain like an egg’.”

Keith huffed and shoved Pidge’s hand away with his snout. She obliged and they went back to the never ended list of possibilities. He had almost fully drifted off again when a new scent interrupted his dozing, as well as a pair of tiny hands on his snout. 

The mice chirped, Platt crowding onto his face as the other three kept their distance. 

“Hey.” Keith mumbled, content to curl up again before a thought raced through is mind. “Wait!” He startled, once again banging his head on the desk and scaring the mice into scattering under Pidge’s chair. “Wait, no. Can you understand me? Please.”

Chuchule nodded, pink ears flapping delicately as she crawled back out. Platt carried Chulatt and dragged Plachu by the tail as they all four sat in a semi-circle in front of his outstretched paw. 

“Oh thank god. Please, you have to help me. Tell Princess Allura that me and Kosmo swapped bodies. It was the red berry bush. Please, right away it’s important.”

The mice chittered their agreement, nodding furiously before running off one after the other. Keith slipped out from the desk and stretched his aching legs before walking in an attempt to follow them. 

This was interrupted when Allura’s voice rung out through the castle. 

“WHAT?!” 

Keith watched, wide-eyed with relief and horror, as Allura surged onto the bridge. Mice on her shoulder she ignored Pidge and Coran, instead crowding Keith and kneeling down to cup his face with both hands. “Keith? Keith, are you really in there?” 

“YES.” Yes yes yes yes yes. The relief was immense and he could hardly care that the words were wolfish choking noises and that his tail was wagging of its own accord as he nodded his head furiously. 

“Oh, Keith I am so sorry. We never realized-” She hugged him, then backed off when she was met with stiffness and remembered who she was dealing with. She turned to Pidge and Coran, who still stared questioningly. “Keith and Kosmo weren’t disoriented because of a plant.” She explained. “They were disoriented because they swapped bodies!” 

Pidge blinked, her stare owlish as she slowly pulled the com towards her, not looking away as she spoke. “Hey, I need everyone on the bridge. Like, right now.”

\---

“YOU PISSED IN THE SHOWERS, MAN! I SAW YOU! YOU BIT ME! HOW COULD YOU!?”

Keith could barely care about Lance’s shouting. Not when he was staring down an astonished, near tearful Shiro. 

Shiro fell to his knees, letting Kosmo go and instead collecting Keith in his arms in a way that made high pitched whines seep from the depths of his chest. 

“I’m so sorry, Keith.” He said, voice small and shaking. “Oh god, I made you sleep on the floor! I ignored you all day! I’ve been carrying Kosmo around like a ragdoll and you’ve just been following me around-” He stopped talking when Keith pressed a paw to his face. Replacing it with a gentle shove of his head that flowed into a shouldered hug with his face rested in the crook of Shiro’s neck. Shiro followed suit, tension falling away as he held him close. 

Ever predictable, Kosmo shoved his face into Shiro’s arm and wriggled his way into the embrace. Shiro chuckled and let him as Keith rolled his eyes. 

“Jetiskulley berries!” Coran said for the fifteenth time. “I can’t believe I didn't think of that! I mean it makes sense. They are harmless when eaten by Alteans, or Galra, or I guess Humans too… but animals! Animals they swap the minds of with the next being that touches them. The native Froxjettis use them as a defense mechanism against the Kreltrin! Oh, what a shock that always is for the Kreltrin!” He chuckled. 

Lance, done with being ignored, pulled Keith by the ear and shouted right next to his face. “YOU. BIT. ME!!?” 

Kosmo responded to Keith’s pained whine by defending him.  
\---

“How’re you feeling?” Shiro said, holding Keith up with a gentle hand as he sat on the infirmary table. 

Keith held out his arm and gave his fingers an experimental wiggle before giddily extending and retracting them in quick succession. “I’m feeling great.” He smiled, “Feeling human.” He looked down and wiggled his toes, flexing them under the strain of vibrantly red socks. “Oh my god, I should not be this happy to have my color vision back.”

Shiro laughed. “Is that what you missed during your stint living out every teenager’s dream of being a wolf? The color red?” 

Keith looked to him with a scouring expression. “You know I didn’t.” He teased, welcoming the embrace when Shiro gathered him in his arms and ran his cool, metallic fingers through is hair. 

“I can’t believe you bit Lance.”

Keith laughed, turning his face towards Shiro’s to muffle the sound. “I can’t believe Kosmo bit him too!”

Shiro chuckled, shaking his head as he leaned back to look at him. “He’s not going to forgive either of you anytime soon. You know that right?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Keith sighed, nodding. “He’ll get over it.”

“I dunno.” Shiro said, his lips quirked in an insufferable smile as he barely held back another burst of laughter. “You’re both gunna be in the doghouse for a while.”

Keith made an offended noise, pushing Shiro back as he howled laughing at his own joke. And then, to add insult to injury, Keith bit him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the read. I scream on my twitter @frozenbullies and on the same tumblr. 
> 
> I accept comments, kudos, and kudos, and tends to be friendly. 
> 
>  ps- this was the reference for Keith screaming in Kosmo's body [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXJ7-1rEJhU ]
> 
> (Thanks to @neurotenical for doing a readover and for cheering me on! Big Kiss!)


End file.
